Same as before: I will appreciate any help if there are any mistakes or something needs to be corrected ;)Please do not repost it anywhere. I prefer to keep the translations to my own dark little corner and be responsible for my mistakes and the words I choose.

Q: Speaking of big events, in 2005 it must have been first and foremost a release of the first album.

H: We had never before written so many songs at once.

Q: Hey! How many years had it been since the formation of the band? (laughs)

K: I still remember how exhausting it was.

Everyone: Yeah.

K: Every day we were absorbed in writing songs from afternoon till next morning.

Q: When did you start writing music for the album?

Z: Right after we came back from Europe.

K: Because suddenly we realized that we wanted to write it.

Everyone: (laughs)

H: That’s right.

Z: We were even told that it would be released in Europe, so at that point we had no choice but to record it.

Q: Finally you decided to record your first album.

K: And it was during our sixth year as a band…

Q: Did you avoid making an album before because you thought it would be too difficult?

K: No, we just never thought about it. I don’t know why the idea of recording an album had never occurred to us.

Q: But the fans must have told you many times that they’d like to listen to an album.

K: That’s true. Why did we never think about it?

H: I wonder.

T: Probably every time we wrote a song we wanted to release it as soon as possible, without even thinking about recording a full album.

H: Yeah, somehow every time we wrote a song we wanted to release it and that’s why we had singles and mini albums all the time. We didn’t have a treasure chest where we would save the songs for the future.

Everyone: (laughs).

K: You’re right.

Q: When did you start recording the album?

Z: I think we barely managed to finish it in May before going to America.

H: Somehow I remember that we recorded in June.

Q: Why did it take you such a long time?

K: Because there were things we were particular about, it was our first album after all, sometimes we didn’t want to compromise, sometimes we were impatient… there were also the times when we could not get songs or lyrics right…

H: That was when we met Mr. Narita for the first time and began to work with him. (T.N. no idea who he is talking about >_>;)

Q: Were you in a state of mind that you were thinking only about the recording all the time?

K: Yeah, we were so reckless.

Q: D’espairsRay had already been to Europe and this year you also went to America. How did it go?

H: The first time we played there was at an anime convention.

Z: No, wasn’t it at a place next to it? At San Jose.

K: We said so many times that we didn’t want to play there! We didn’t want to be seen as an anime kind of a band.

Q: Yes, I remember you saying that.

K: We said that we wanted to have a taste of what it was like to be a rock band in America…

Q: Didn’t you play right at the convention center? Hizumi, have you forgotten it all?

K: Not at the convention center, but at the place next to it.

H: Ah! There was even an orchestra pit there.

Q: That’s right. I remember how many times you said that you did not want to be lumped together with anime.

K: We wanted to play our music in front of rock fans, so we got Acey to join us.

Q: We went to a restaurant to meet with Acey after we arrived to San Jose. I remember how, when I saw them for the first time, I thought that all of them were very tall, as expected of Americans.

H: Yeah, that’s right.

K: But from my point of view they were normal height (laughs). They had such an air of celebrities around them.

H: They looked like rockstars (laughs).

Z: I checked their homepage before we went to see them and I thought that they looked really scary (laughs).

Q: But when we met them, we realized that they were really nice people.

H: Yeah, they were really nice (laughs).

Q: You played at a very beautiful live house in San Francisco for two days. An elderly man who had a lot of fun watching D’espairsRay concert left an impression on me.

K: Yeah, it was surprising that he enjoyed the kind of music we play.

Q: Then you went over to Dallas and played there for two days in a row too.

H: We distributed fliers at a convention center in Dallas. That was the time, when we realized on a few occasions, that playing in America can be really tough.

Q: For example?

H: Americans are very frank expressing their feelings. If a concert is good, they have fun, but if it is not they get bored. Honestly I thought that it might have been still too early for us to play there.

Q: You went touring overseas again later during the same year, I have a feeling that was the time when the number of the lives you played in Japan began to decrease. In October you played in Munich and Paris together with Kagerou.

H: I remember very well how Daisuke rode with us in our car and we talked and talked all the time (laughs).

K: It was a lot of fun. Somehow we had never before gone travelling together like that and it was very fresh and fun.

Q: As an extension of that tour you went over to America again.

K: Touring had never been that rigorous before.

H: We even thought of going back right after the very first live (laughs).

Z: It was the first and only time our manager ever said: “It’s enough, let’s just go back”.

Q: What was the reason?

H: Well, I am not sure…

Z: We were rehearsing, when people started to come into the hall. We were confused about what was going on and then we were suddenly told: “Go ahead!”…The people who came in were the fans. As far as I remember we discussed the rehearsals in advance, but it was either not settled or there was something else going on, but the fans were let into the hall during our rehearsal.

K: By the time we noticed the show started. The common thing between playing in America and Europe is that an opening band has instruments placed on the stage in front of equipment of a headlining band.

H: Yeah, the drum set of the opening band is placed in front of the drum set of the headliner…

K: That was the first time we experienced it.

H: My space was about the size of two A4 sheets (laughs).

Q: I see, because of the drum sets there was no space left for you.

H: That alone was an anger “infection” (T.N. He says “infection” in English making a pun of a tour title).

Everyone: (laughs).

Q: Was it the same during all the shows?

K: We had very little space all the time.

Q: How many bands toured together?

H: Two bands, first it was Genitorturers and us, and then TRASH LIGHT VISION joined us instead of Genitorturers.

K: This time we toured with Genitorturers, because we wanted to have nothing to do with anime conventions and tour together with other rock bands.

Q: Did you have no rehearsals at all?

K: … sometimes we had rehearsals.

H: Yeah, sometimes.

K: Probably we had no time for rehearsals, because we did not negotiate properly in the beginning. Sometimes it happened that a microphone was placed on a stage, but unless we gave a tip to a technician he would not set it up… it was the first time for us to have that sort of experience. We hung on because we thought that if we got through it, the band would become stronger (laughs).

Q: So in the end the tour was quite a shocking experience.

H: But wasn’t it because we went over there with presumptions of how it happens in Japan? Like thinking that as long as we have time for a rehearsal, we will do well during a show and because we thought that way it became such a shock. Things aren’t going to always go smoothly.

K: D’espairsRay became really strong during that tour.

Q: I remember you saying after that tour that you were no longer scared of whatever happens.

H: Because in the end everything is fine as long as the equipment works and we can produce the sound.

Everyone: (laughs).

K: Even though it is not really true.

H: No, it is not. But in the end we reached the point where as long as our instruments work we can perform. Well, as an experience…

K: It was amazing.

H: Yeah, it was a good experience.

Q: What about you, Tsukasa? What do you think about that American tour?

T: It was the first time for me that my drum set was placed in front of another drum set. As for playing with an American band, I think my style changed and I grew up as a musician during that tour.

Q: Is that all?

T: Should I talk more? … I apologize to our American fans, but personally I do not like American food.

K: There he goes (laughs).

T: That is all.

Q: Because Americans eat a lot of meat, right?

T: Yeah, but T-bone steak was delicious.

K: Meat is always delicious.

Q: What about the other three of you? Do you have any problems with food overseas?

H: I do.

Z: I like Western food.

K: America was especially hard for me.

H: We are more or less fine in Europe as long as we choose a good place to eat.

K: But family restaurants were especially horrible, for example, sometimes spaghetti tasted like an antiseptic. Caesar salad was good, but hamburgers were too much, there was no way I could eat that kind of food every day.

H: We went to a Chinese place once and it was disgusting. Zero ordered sweet-and-sour pork and it had strawberry syrup as a topping.

Z: (laughs).

H: It was so pink (laughs). That kind of food was horrible.

Q: There are very few people who can easily adapt to being in a different country, but you, Zero, said that you do not have problems abroad.

Z: Yeah, I am fine as long as there is a McDonalds somewhere around. In America there are places that sell only chicken hamburgers and I like that kind of food, I wish we’d have it here in Japan too.

Current Mood: sore

Current Music:Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals

Tags:

Comments

lol yeah, they said on a few occasions that they disliked playing at a con. But that's exactly why they went abroad and toured again, which was way more difficult than a con thing. And that's probably one thing I really love about them: these guys have got guts ;)

And after that he complains about getting fat! xDI do not understand why Karyu dislikes his height, he is one of the few people in this damn country who reminds me that that is normal height and I am actually short despite being at least half head taller than most Japanese girls! xD

They should not have asked Tsukasa to elaborate about touring in America, of course he had to mention food. And though they all laughed at him for it, Hizumi and Karyu immediately joined the bashing xD

Thanks for this translation! It was very entertaining and specially I loved how it ended ;P mheheh

Argh, and it's annoying this stage thing about placing the opening band in front of the headliner... I think most bands must be upset at that, because it really points out that you're just an opening band. Also many times the technicians do not prepare the stage and the instruments in the same way as they do with the headliners, and the sound ends up being not so good... Bad, bad, bad ;O

lolol Why am not surprised at all that was what they taught him!? Swear words are always the first guys learn when going abroad. So many times some guys who went traveling to Russia tried to show off what they learned there and told me all those words that are usually censored xD

You are right, I checked the credits for Coll:set and Mirror and saw that Shinobu Narita is listed as a producer (and co-author of Hollow). Hizumi's phrase was just left hanging in the air and they did not elaborate, so it was a little confusing.